THEATRICAL FESTIVAL OF LOVE
At Fort Lovrijenac, after three thousand years and one day of desperate hope for somebody to actually hear her, Euripides' Medea has spoken with a powerful theatrical and captivating voice, taking the audience to every depth and width of this famous Greek tragedy with the excellent staging by the director Tomaž Pandur. (...) Everything has been splendidly intertwined in this excellent production, all the creative forces of all the authors and of the Lovrijenac setting have been joined and multiplied to give the production that will certainly be played and remembered for a long time. (...) Alma Prica as Medea has captivated us entirely with her powerful performance, with her voice, outcry and silence. (...) Livio Badurina, the Keeper of the Golden Fleece was a superb narrator and commentator of the plot. With his movement, gestures and muteness, he provoked applause, fully earned, from the audience at the open stage. Bojan Navojec was also excellent in the role of Jason, a husband and a traitor convinced of his right to treachery (...) Medea, after three thousand years and one day, has grabbed the heart of the festival theatre audience and lived up to her expectations. (...)
Marina Zec – Miović, db net, 05/08/2012
PANDUR's MEDEA WORTH MANY VISITS TO LOVRIJENAC
Alma Prica had to overcome three thousand years of social patriarchate and she succeeded, owing to the strength of her sculptured body and her deep feminine frailty. But she had a brilliant ally in Livio Badurina.
Euripides' “Medea”, directed by Tomaž Pandur, translated by Lada Kaštelan, and staged at Fort Lovrijenac, has turned out to be a first-class artistic experience. (...)
Pandur has convincingly turned a female into a male choir, has thrown out the roles of nurse and tutor and made Medea's sons older. He has treated the audience to a production whose visual installation is at times wonderfully beautiful or, at times, a precisely directed film that unwinds before our eyes with no cuts, editing, or repeating interventions. Impeccable, incredibly creative, full of metaphors, surprises, reflections, citations... (...)
The performance with so many dimensions is worth seeing many times because it is difficult to follow all Pandur's traps and hooks at one go, even visually, let alone to connect all the elements into one impression. But this is Pandur's prerogative, and certainly not a flaw.
Denis Derk, Večernji list, 05/08/2012
Audience was left breathless
ALMA PRICA FOR ALL MEDEA'S FACES
(...) Pandur's “Medea” staged in Dubrovnik, masterfully interpreted by Alma Prica, is not just a vengeful woman imputed with an unthinkable crime of murdering her own children, but she is primarily – a woman.
The choice of Lovrijenac for the staging of this tragic and cruel love story has given this production a unique ambiance and Euripides' heroine embodied in Alma Prica has shown the outstanding performing sensibility and communicated all the emotions, fears and doubts that vexed Medea to the audience. (...)
In his contemporary reading of Medea's intimate tragedy, intertwined with politics, great ideas and a dreadful fate in exile, he has underlined the universal and contemporary message in this Euripides' work.
The director’s search for answers to questions that have remained unanswered to these days has created interesting conceptual solutions, with hints of wit creating a slight distance from the general pathos of the Greek tragedy. (...)
“Medea”, the absolute hit of this summer's Games will be “moved” in September from the stage at Lovrijenac to the Ljubljana Festival and thereafter it will be played at the stage of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb.
Anet Franić, Slobodna Dalmacija, 05/08/2012
GREAT PERFORMANCE, TERRIFIC ALMA PRICA
Amazing Alma Prica in the lead role, brilliantly psychologically nuanced, avoiding plaintiveness, living Medea's intimate feelings; this is her brilliant role at the Dubrovnik Festival and in her career. A great contribution to this supreme production has been given by Bojan Navojec as Medea's husband Jason, by Ivan Glowatzky and Romano Nikolić as their sons Pheres and Mermerus, by Damir Markovina in the role of Aegeus, but mostly by Livio Badurina as the excellent Keeper of the Golden Fleece, whose pantomime bravado has won the applause at the open stage. (...)
Pandur's staging individualism, the symbolism of scenes, visual presentation and a playful setting of the magical Lovrijenac interior – with a towering video wall/aquarium on the scene – with a fascinating ”role” of water (or of mirrors searching and waiting for answers), were developed by the Numen designer group. (...)
Tomaž Pandur has reaped success in his first appearance at the Games in collaboration with the Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb. (...)
Luka Brailo, Zadarski list, 07/08/2012
HIGH ARTISTIC LEVELS
By avoiding obscure sentences, one should say: “Medea” is a play of high artistic levels, with an interesting and coherent artistic concepts and outstanding acting roles. Tomaž Pandur has staged “Medea” in a Mediterranean ambiance of various Iberic, Gallic, Italian, Hellenic and even Balkan connotations, seething with Mediterranean and summer night passions, with subtle homoerotic allusions in a society that was and has remained patriarchal; it is the world of distinctive and accentuated emotions ruling over reason. (...)
All this is supported extraordinarily by visual elements of the scene – a Mediterranean wine cellar (Numen group), the costume design by Danica Dedijer, in a well-balanced presentation of a modern designer expression, but, at the same time, staged appropriately for each character, with an intriguing video by Dorijan Kolundžija (Gallery 12+), exceptional music by Boris Benko and Primož Hladnik (Silence), which follows Medea from the initial melodic tones to the final atonal distortion, with an interesting game of light and shadow by lighting designer Andrej Hajdinjak. Throughout the entire performance, the Festival Drama Ensemble acted with balance, accepting the director's dramaturgical concept. Almost everyone has found the way for deeper explorations and personal creations.
Alma Prica’s Medea will be remembered by the theatre world as a piece of truly remarkable acting. Full of and overflowing with passion, superior and equally expressive in the unspeakable desire for revenge, and in her doubts and silences, Alma Prica has proven that the power of acting – in the production closer to some of Roland Barthes’ post-structuralist visions – is here to stay and live.
Tomislav M. Bonić, Kazalište.hr, 04/ 08/ 2012
PANDUR'S MEDEA HAS EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS
(...) Euripides' ''Medea'' has dazzled the audience at the wonderful Fort Lovrijenac with all the might of the expressive force and tragedy, revealing in the opening night's performance (...) yet another grandiose production played by the Festival Ensemble thanks to the supreme artistic levels of the author's team. ”Medea” has been staged by Tomaž Pandur, a director of the international acclaim, in collaboration with Pandur.Theaters and the Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb. A great team in the great production with, in the first place, brilliant Alma Prica (...). A performance that has exceeded all expectations and has been greeted by the standing ovation from the audience.
Sonja Seferović, Dubrovački vjesnik, 11/08/2012
FASCINATING!
If the spectators leave the theatre asking themselves just one new question – then we have made it – says director Tomaž Pandur announcing the opening night of Euripides' “Medea” at Lovrijenac. However, you leave the theatre speechless!
The audience is drawn by the strength of emotion and thought, by Alma Prica’s fascinating performance and by the performance of the entire Festival Drama Ensemble, driven by the exciting creative energy of Tomaž Pandur and his closest associates – they are impressive in a ”stupefying” way. (...)
The roles of the entire Drama Ensemble have been played brilliantly. Their excellence is unique: each of them separately and as the company.
The characteristic direction of Tomaž Pandur, the symbolism of scenes, pure emotion accentuated by metaphysical reflections in the ”aquarium” towering over the drama characters, and the music have given us the performance for which we should be thankful: to him, to the Games Management and coproducers, and to the Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb, because they have brought Tomaž to Dubrovnik to promote the Town as the place of the living and inextinguishable theatrical inspiration.
Lidija Crnčević, Dubrovniknet.hr, 04/08/2012
ALMA PRICA'S DEMONIC TAMING OF MEDEA
Pandur has immersed us softly in the world of visual symbolism that has given the metaphysical depth to the entire production, otherwise not expected to be seen in things visible to the naked eye. (...) Yesterday evening at Fort Lovrijenac we witnessed the divine performance by Alma Prica, who carried the play on her gentle shoulders with an amazing strength for the full two hours. Along with Prica, laurels were also earned by Livio Badurina in the role of the Keeper of the Golden Fleece, whose performance would be applauded for example by Marina Abramović and Vanessa Beecroft. (...)
Pandur’s success lies in cunning moves that tickle absolutely all senses: at one point during the performance even the furthest rows of the audience were able to smell onion and tomatoes mutilated by Mermerus on the kitchen table. The powerful music announces Medea’s bipolar transformations, the digital water pool at the top of Lovrijenac is there to interpret the consequences of her actions: sinister predictions, blood and dead bodies poetically floating in the well of Medea’s madness. (...)
Yesterday evening Tomaž Pandur managed to bring Medea’s spirit from Hades to Lovrijenac, under the summer sky, to torture us, provoke, exhilarate, surprise and then to leave us more vulnerable than before.
Grgo Zečić, Büro 24/7, 04/08/2012
JOURNEY AS A REASON
The director Tomaž Pandur, has found a reason for Medea in Dubrovnik, co-produced by the Dubrovnik Summer Games and the Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb, in cooperation with Pandur.Theaters, in the travels of the Argonauts, who maybe disembarked on Dubrovnik shores, joined in their karma, searching for and keeping the Golden Fleece, (...) Medea's journey of “three thousand years and one day” through staged retorts were synthesized in a life on an isolated island, at the bottom and on the surface of the sea (...).
Alma Prica as Medea must take over (...) a multiple role: of Euripides' Medea, a traveller through space and time, female archetype, the meta-theatrical Medea/actress and performer addressing the audience before the gruesome murder, in a simply terrifying manner. (...) In private frail, Alma Prica has created a powerful Medea in terms of voice, body and acting, without the tiniest bit of shallow old-fashioned pathos, managing to switch from passion to jealousy in a matter of seconds, from motherly to murderous instinct, fusing in her role a harp and a cello, a lute and a double bass, silence and drums with utterly reduced acting devices.
(...) Alma Prica has given an impressive role of a sorceress Medea in every respect, from the modulation of voice tonalities to the relationship with the audience and colleagues, conquering Fort Lovrijenac with the courage and power of one of the most powerful Croatian actresses. The useful and needed antipode to this modern tragic role is Livio Badurina in a mute role of the Keeper of the Golden Fleece, which is non-existent in Euripides' drama. The power of pantomime imitating the walk and movements of the animal world, in the role of a performer that makes the tragic situation lighter through elaborated gestural details (head movements, steps, a walk, a gesture), with a mask on the face and over his body, Badurina has conquered, with fascination, the subconscious and unconscious, superconscious and conscious layers of Lovrijenac (...). Finally, one of the highest points of the performance, “performance for mum” by Roman Nikolić as Mermerus and Ivan Glowatzki as the other son/brother Pheres. Just before the murder/their own death, in the meta-theatrical mousetrap with paper bags with cut out smiles and eyes over their heads, they give a sad and emotional parting moment to their mother Medea.
Mira Muhoberac, Vijenac, br. 482/483, 6/ 9/ 2012
The numerous artistic team gathered on this project has combined forces and created a performance according to high production criteria with the translation by Lada Kaštelan, the adaptation by Darko Lukić and the dramaturgic work by Livija Pandur as the starting points. (...) The Festival Drama Ensemble lead by Alma Prica, with the impressive actors such as Bojan Navojec, Ivan Glowatzki, Roman Nikolić, Damir Markovina – with two great vespa and clarinet episodes, Livio Badurina in the memorable role of a silent accomplice in an almost ten-minutes-long visual and artistic performance, and the omnipresent Corinthian choir of distinctive artistic individualities – are the supple elements of the production that relies on its expressive and intensive energy, beauty and on the urge for the magical but also real sweat, blood, death and fate of all the protagonists of this crime page with shaken alibis. The director’s handwriting of this performance is precise, with a poetic appeal, with interesting dramaturgical turns, given by a playful ensemble almost free of any weak points, with the amazing Alma Prica in the leading role that has breathed out, cursed and screamed Medea's fate in the extraordinary vicissitudes of Lovrijenac, this summer’s port of disembarking and adventure for the Argonauts in search for the Golden Fleece of the summertime Dubrovnik.
Davor Mojaš, Hrvatski radio, Radio Dubrovnik, Dnevnik, 04/08/2012
MEDEA: REASON AND COMPASSION CONFOUNDED BY REVENGE
Pandur. The name that promises a different experience of the theatre art, an artist that provokes, conquers and surprises. He is the man who knows how to draw from the actors the things that please spectators' senses. With Medea, Euripides’ tragedy about a powerful anti-heroine, born in cooperation between the Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb, the 2012 Dubrovnik Summer Games, Pandur.Theaters and the Ljubljana Festival in an impressively staged form, the director has once again shown why his vision of the theatre is so shocking, unique and fresh. (...) An intense applause at the end of the performance is the evidence that the Slovenian audience yearns for Pandur’s theatre magic.
Igor Đukić, siol.net, 12/09/2012
TOMAŽ PANDUR IN KRIŽANKE – THREE NIGHTS SOLD OUT
Great expectations were fulfilled by Pandur’s Medea at the yesterday’s opening night.
Great expectations were fulfilled by Tomaž Pandur in the three-day appearance at the Ljubljana Festival with his production of Medea; the shows were sold out, and the famous Croatian actress Alma Prica in the leading role of the vengeful Medea gave the principal impulse to the production.
Marjan Zlobec, Delo, Ljubljana,12/09/2012
Tomaž Pandur has proved once again that he is a great aesthete and that his theatrical poetics, once founded on a spectacle, has kept pace with time and that he has courageously come out of the Italian box, moving along the path of performance towards new media and new technologies. Euripides' mythological heroine Medea adapted by Darko Lukić and Livija Pandur has served as the drama concept for the precisely elaborated sound, visual and film superstructure, directed by Pandur with a subtle aesthetic feeling.
Marjana Ravnjak, TV Slovenia 1, 11/09/2012